30 Snapshots
by TardisIsTheOnlyWayToTravel
Summary: Thirty tales involving the Trickster archangel himself, Gabriel. Story Four: In which Gabriel is the plucky little angel trying to save the Winchesters from the Trickster.
1. Air

**Title: **30 Snapshots

**Author:** TardisIsTheOnlyWayToTravel (or aceofannwn on livejournal)

**Spoilers: **For Gabriel the archangel, mostly. Season 5, probably.

**So. Here are a bunch of ficlets and shorts involving everyone's favourite Trickster archangel himself, Gabriel. Some are gen, some are slash (relax, you'll be warned) and some are plain crack.**

**All have been written for my spn_30snapshots fic prompt table.**

Ficlet Title: Air

Summary: Gabriel kidnaps Sam and takes him to Disneyland. It takes Sam a while to realise what's behind it.

Warnings/spoilers: If you know who Gabriel is, you're good. Mild Sam/Gabriel. AU series five – i.e., Gabriel didn't die, but stayed to help Team Free Will. Well. I say 'help', but hey, that's entirely subjective…

Prompt: This is for the prompt 'air' on my spn_30snapshots table.

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**Air**

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Sam was sitting doing research when there was a "come on Sam, let's do something _fun_," and a hand on his shoulder, and he was suddenly standing somewhere else entirely.

"Gabriel!" Sam exclaimed, turning to glare at the archangel. "I was researching!"

Gabriel just grinned up at him. Most people were intimidated by the sight of Sam glaring down at them, but then archangels were powerful enough that it was like being glared at by a beetle: of absolutely no threat whatsoever.

"Oh, please, you weren't going to get anywhere," Gabriel claimed, dismissing Sam's protests as irrelevant. "Besides, I can take you back to the same moment you left, if I want. You need to get out and _do_ something, Sammy boy. Relax and unwind for a while. Trust me, it'll do you good."

Sam just gave him an 'I am unimpressed by your argument' face and looked around.

"Where are we?"

Gabriel's eyes lit up and he grinned again at the show of interest, however unwilling.

"Welcome to Disneyworld!" he proclaimed, holding out his arms like a magician who has just done a particularly impressive trick and is waiting for the applause.

Sam took another look around.

It did indeed appear to be Disneyworld. The giant, iconic castle kind of gave it away.

"Let's go find something fun to do," Gabriel announced, grabbing Sam's hand and dragging him into the crowds like the hunter was no heavier than a young child.

Sam was forced to go along behind him, compelled by the archangel's strength and the way Gabriel had firmly interlocked their fingers.

Still, he thought. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad.

* * *

It turned out to be simultaneously embarrassing and awesome, in the way that was uniquely Gabriel.

For a start, Gabriel never once let go of Sam's hand. Possibly this was because he was afraid that Sam might attempt to slip away and escape, but it was just as likely that he liked tugging Sam around behind him like a pet. The sight of them going around hand-in-hand seemed to give some people the wrong idea, though.

A teenage girl standing behind them in a queue for one of the rides smiled cheerfully and actually told Sam that she thought he and his boyfriend were cute.

Sam found himself speechless and appalled, but Gabriel just smirked and said "why thank you," in honeyed tones.

_Dick._

Still, Sam also had enormous fun. Gabriel knew all the best rides, and the queues mysteriously shortened whenever they joined one, and Gabriel's flow of light-hearted chatter and sarcastic remarks was pretty entertaining when it wasn't at Sam or Dean's expense.

They stopped several times to buy candy, like a stick of cotton candy, and a rainbow-swirled lollipop roughly the same circumference as Gabriel's head.

"Dude, how can you possibly eat that?" Sam asked, staring at the enormous plastic-wrapped confection.

"Archangel," Gabriel cheerfully informed him.

More like a glutton for candy, Sam thought.

Gabriel frowned and hit him over the head with the flat side of the lollipop.

"_Ow!_"

Sam rubbed his head in annoyance, while Gabriel happily unwrapped the giant candy.

"I think you actually out-jerk Dean, which is impressive," Sam told the archangel sulkily.

"I'm good at impressive." Gabriel waggled his eyebrows over the huge lollipop.

Sam just made a face.

* * *

Two hours later and the lollipop was still going strong when Gabriel suggested,

"You humans need to eat, right? And I bet all that bulk of yours takes a lot of maintenance. Let's find you some eats."

Sam was gratified to discover a sushi place, which made Gabriel roll his eyes a little.

Sam _had_ been feeling hungry, not to mention that he'd been getting a bit tired-out by the time they had stopped to look at a store selling clothing and other souvenirs.

Gabriel had tried to make Sam wear a hat with Mickey Mouse ears, but Sam had flatly refused. No way in hell. Dean would have laughed himself sick at the sight.

"You should eat more candy," Gabriel said idly.

"It's unhealthy," Sam replied. It wasn't like he _never_ ate candy; he just tried to eat a healthy diet, that was all.

"You know, scientists have found that chocolate can be good for you."

"Not the stuff you eat," Sam said bluntly.

Gabriel playfully frowned.

"Are you saying I have cheap tastes in chocolate, Sam?"

Yeah, he was. Honestly, if Sam could snap up any type of chocolate he wanted, it wouldn't be the stuff Gabriel ate.

Gabriel's eyes instantly acquired a gleam.

"Oh, really?" he asked lowly, apparently taking Sam's words as a challenge, or an invitation maybe.

He snapped his fingers.

There was now a plain wooden box sitting on the table between them.

Sam gave it a vaguely wary look.

"It's not going to bite." Gabriel's voice was dry.

Finishing his sushi, Sam cautiously opened the box and removed a layer of tissue paper, to be met with the sight of rows of carefully-crafted chocolates each sitting in its own tiny ruffled paper cup, all of them resting on shiny red tissue paper.

Definitely not _cheap_ chocolates.

Sam tried one.

He made an involuntary sound, and Gabriel smirked, his eyes glinting.

"These are _good_," Sam said, reaching for another one, not entirely of his own volition. His tastebuds had kind of hijacked his motor control.

"So, the forty-five dollar boxes of chocolate are the way to go," Gabriel observed. "Duly noted."

Sam paused to gape at him.

"_Forty-five dollars?_"

"Yeah, so I'd better see you enjoying the damn things." Gabriel's eyes sparkled with playfulness.

Sam hesitated, but then, Gabriel _had_ tried specifically to find chocolate Sam would like. It would be rude not to at least eat some of them.

He only half-noticed as he reached for another chocolate.

* * *

The two of them went on the _Pirates of the Caribbean_ ride.

It wasn't the most interesting ride Sam had ever been on, but Gabriel loudly told him stories about actual pirates he had known, and that part _was_ interesting.

Gabriel was still holding onto Sam's hand – he only let go when one of them was eating something, just about – but Sam found that he didn't really mind so much. He'd gotten used to it, and truthfully, it was vaguely nice, although he'd never admit it.

Gabriel just smiled at him, a bit more warmly than usual, and continued his story about Blackbeard's wife.

After that they went on some ride for some alien movie, which Gabriel found hilarious; in one section that had been modelled on the concept of an alien laboratory, Gabriel sat and giggled hysterically, and eyed the robotic aliens with speculative mirth, as though wondering what would happen if he turned them into _real_ aliens.

Sam didn't ask; he was pretty sure that the giggling – and who knew Gabriel giggled sometimes? – was to do with that trick Gabriel had pulled on that college frat kid a few years back, and if Gabriel planned to wreak havoc on the rides, then he didn't want to _know_. Someone else could be the responsible one, for once.

"Aliens," Gabriel said happily as they exited the ride, his giggles finally dying down, while Sam watched him in some amusement. The giggling had been weirdly endearing. "I love aliens. Of all the ideas you humans could come up with, you decide that species from other planets are coming all the way out here just to violate you in horrible and experimental ways before just putting you back where they found you. Sam, who the hell comes up with something as weird and twisted as _that?_"

"You were thinking about the college kid and the slow-dancing aliens, weren't you?" Sam asked resignedly.

Gabriel chuckled.

"Man, that was _great_."

Sam shook his head and sighed, but couldn't help his slight grin.

It _had _been kind of funny, if really, really wrong.

* * *

It was while they were up in the air on the ferris wheel, looking down at the theme park spread out below them, surrounded by sky, that Sam finally caught on.

"Gabriel," he asked, a little hesitantly; if he was wrong then this was going to be mortifying, "are we on a date?"

Gabriel grinned at him, eyes warm.

"Took you a while."

"Oh." Sam thought about it. Contemplation of the idea required some internal rearrangements of his mental landscape.

"Okay." He was surprisingly alright with the idea.

Gabriel laughed softly, and squeezed Sam's hand. Sam squeezed back.

Gabriel leaned against Sam's shoulder, and they sat and looked out at the world below, surrounded only by air.

* * *

At the end of the day they reappeared in the motel room to the sight of an irate Dean.

"_The hell have you been!_" Dean exploded, his anger failing to disguise the fact that he had been out of his mind with worry.

Sam looked at Gabriel.

Gabriel shrugged.

"Hey, I said that I _could_ get you back the moment you left. Not that I wanted to."

Sam had to hold back a snort. That was typical Gabriel.

"Are those Disneyworld bags?" Dean's voice rose an octave. "I've been sitting here wondering what the hell happened to you and you were at frigging _Disneyworld_ _all day?_"

"I'll see you later, Sammy," Gabriel said, smirking at Dean and enjoying the visible increase in fury the smirk provoked, and sending Sam a quick glance. "British Museum next time?"

"Sure," Sam agreed, intrigued. Now that he knew it wasn't going to lead to something unpleasant, Gabriel could even kidnap him again next time, as long as there wasn't something vitally important going on. Sam being abducted by archangels at odd moments would have the advantage of pissing off Dean, and Dean had been a pretty big jerk lately.

Gabriel smiled with mischief, presumably reading Sam's thoughts again, and disappeared.

Leaving Sam alone with a ranting Dean.

"What? Next time? There's gonna be a _next time?_ Son of a –!"

Sam tried to stifle his grin, and wondered which bag Gabriel had put the box of chocolates in.

**FIN**


	2. All False Love and Affection

**Title: **30 Snapshots

**Author:** TardisIsTheOnlyWayToTravel (or aceofannwn on livejournal)

Spoilers: For Gabriel the archangel, mostly. Season 5, probably.

**So. Here are a bunch of ficlets and shorts involving everyone's favourite Trickster archangel himself, Gabriel. Some are gen, some are slash (relax, you'll be warned) and some are plain crack.**

**All have been written for my spn_30snapshots fic prompt table.**

Ficlet Title: All False Love and Affection

Summary: Sam's pretty certain about how he feels about the archangel, but isn't sure that Gabriel isn't just messing him around. Maybe confronting him isn't the best idea, though.

Warnings/spoilers: If you know who Gabriel is, you're good. Sam/Gabriel slash. Mentions of past cruelty and violence. Lots of angst in this one, but it resolves kinda okay.

Prompt: This is for the prompt 'yearn' on my spn_30snapshots table.

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**All False Love and Affection**

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_It's all false love and affection  
You don't want me  
You just like the attention  
Yes it's all false love and affection  
You don't like me  
You just want the attention..._

– "_I'm not your Toy," Le Roux_

If someone had told Sam six months ago that he would end up falling for the Trickster, Sam would have laughed in their faces.

Six months ago, though, Sam hadn't known that the Trickster was Gabriel in disguise, or had him popping in and out all the time to help Team Free Will with the apocalypse in his smug, smart-ass way.

Sure, Gabriel was annoying as hell, and his motivations inscrutable to those who weren't either insane or angels, but nonetheless he was often genuinely helpful, and every now and then Sam saw a glimpse of the archangel beneath the facade, great and knowing.

Sam had gotten used to Gabriel being around pretty quickly, and soon after that had actually grown attached to him.

Unfortunately, then his feelings had gotten _complicated, _and it had gone downhill from there.

The problem was, Sam had no clue how Gabriel actually felt about _him_.

The archangel flirted with him incessantly, and lift him little gifts liek candy bars or new USB sticks. But while he could do nice things sometimes, he was just as capable of turning around and doing something callous or malicious. He bugged Sam all the time, on purpose, and said sneering things about him and Dean.

Sam _wanted_ to think that Gabriel genuinely liked him, he really did, but it seemed more likely that he was just a convenient source of entertainment, and the only reason Gabriel ever acted nice was for the attention.

It was like Gabriel had gotten bored of all his old toys, and saw Sam and Dean and Castiel – Sam in particular – as a bunch of shiny new playthings.

Sam had kept quiet, had just put up with it and tried to stifle his suspicion, but he couldn't take it any more.

So the next time Gabriel stopped by and started to flirt with him, Sam brought it up.

"Gabriel," Sam said. "We need to talk."

"Ooh, it's the serious 'we must discuss the implications of this' face," Gabriel said, mimicking Sam's expression and the hands on his hips.

"Can you just- can you just stop mocking me for _one_ minute?" Sam asked, trying to stay calm, although he could already feel his temper rising. It was always so easy for Gabriel to rile him; it was the casual, unthinking callousness and unkindness that Gabriel carried everywhere with him.

"Okay, I'll stop," Gabriel agreed, giving in far too easily. "What's up, Sam?"

Sam took a deep breath.

"What do you want from me, Gabriel?"

Gabriel titled his head sideways, and gave Sam a smirk.

"Oh, it's _that_ discussion, huh? I should have known you'd be a girl and want to _talk_ about it."

"Because, really, you're sending mixed messages, and I'd really like to know," Sam said abruptly, ignoring Gabriel's comment and keeping firm control over his ire.

"Ooh, I don't know, Sam." Gabriel made a show of peering at him closely. "What do _you_ want from me?"

He was still treating things like a giant game, the way he always did.

"I like you Gabriel," Sam said steadily, because the point of this was to get everything _out in the open_ and find out where they stood, even if it meant exposing himself and getting hurt. "I like you a lot. And I'd like it if we could have something permanent and _real_."

Gabriel rolled back onto his heels, raising a considering eyebrow.

"Well, that's a nice dream," he remarked.

Sam glared at him.

"Can't you _ever_ act like something matters, for once? Would it kill you to let someone close to you?" Sam demanded. "Everywhere you go, is there anyone you can actually depend on? Anyone who genuinely _likes_ you for who you are? You should give people a chance once in a while!"

The atmosphere in the room suddenly changed, to something charged and dangerous, and Sam had to restrain the impulse to take a step back.

The archangel glared at him.

There was a ring of gold around each iris, and the angry hum of electricity hung heavy in the air.

"Oh please," Gabriel sneered, with enough spite to shock Sam. He had suddenly stopped playing games and hiding, and Sam was seeing the seething, bitter being beneath. "Everyone turns their back on me in the end."

"Well maybe they wouldn't if you didn't push them away!" Sam burst out.

He had half a second to see Gabriel's eyes narrow.

The next moment Sam was slammed up against the wall hard enough to make his head ring, and blinked into eyes that burned an angry gold.

Gabriel's face was full of fury, his angelic nature leaking into his eyes, the hands twisted into Sam's collar shaking with utter rage.

It was terrifying.

"Shut up!" Gabriel snarled, his voice vibrating into impossible registers that hurt Sam's ears, a high-pitched inhuman whine that barely held back from doing him damage. "You don't know a damn thing! I've given _everything_ , again and again, and _every time_ it's thrown back in my face. I would have _died_ for my brothers, but they didn't give a fucking _shit_ when it came down to it. Did you know that archangels can physically manifest their wings? You know why I don't, Sam? Three thousand years ago Heaven was a battlefield and I was the Messenger, passing on news and orders. I got too close to Lucifer and got a sword through two of my wings for it. And Michael? He was so busy going _mano a mano_ with Lucifer that he just kicked me aside so that he could keep fighting while I bled Grace all over the fucking battlefield. No one stopped, Sam. No one came to help. I dragged myself to Raphael who slapped a band-aid on it and kicked me out on my ass.

"_That_ was when I got my first clue. But for the next two thousand years I stayed, I did my duty, and watched as my brothers tore each other apart. I tried to stop it, tried to make them see reason, and then one day Michael got impatient and _smote_ me for getting on his nerves. And you know what Raphael said to me? That that's what I _got_ for not just following orders. None of my brothers gave a flying fuck in _space_ what happened to me: hell, Lucifer and Michael had proved they were happy to slice me open if they were in the mood! I decided to get out before I could lose more than the use of a couple of wings. So go ahead Sam, tell me how much it's _my_ fault everyone walks away and leaves me to suffer."

Gabriel's voice was vitriolic and mocking, his golden eyes glowing with the sheer rage that that fuelled him for so long. Despite being absolutely terrified, Sam could suddenly see how the archangel, consumed by the turbulent emotions eating away at him, had become the twisted, cruelly mocking Trickster.

Gabriel's life had been marked out by callous indifference and countless betrayals, each one scoring deeper than the last.

Sam could almost see him, open and young and full of adoration for his older brothers, being flung aside or abused until the innocent, benevolent angel was replaced by something darker.

All of Gabriel's exasperating, incomprehensible behaviour suddenly made a horrible kind of sense, and oh God, it _hurt_, like someone had just driven nails through Sam's heart.

"Gabriel," Sam choked out past the stranglehold on his collar, "please."

He wasn't sure what he was pleading for – certainly not himself – but Gabriel seemed to suddenly realise that he had Sam dangling half-throttled against the wall, and dropped him abruptly.

Gabriel straightened, a shadow of his usual insouciant demeanour falling over him, and looked at Sam with a cool contempt that nearly broke him.

"Gabriel, please," Sam said again, trying to find a way to articulate the frantic whirl of emotions inside him. "I'd never… I _swear_… please. Gabriel, I'd _never_ do that to you. I mean it. It would kill me. You drive me insane and you hurt me a lot and Dean hates your guts, but I couldn't bear to treat you like that. I don't know how your brothers _could_."

Sam saw his utter sincerity and grief hit Gabriel like a slap in the face.

The archangel recoiled, eyes widening in shock, withdrawing from Sam as though almost afraid.

"Gabriel," Sam said carefully, "I can't promise never to hurt you, because I'm an idiot sometimes, but I'd do my best not to, and I would never use the way you feel about me against you."

Because Gabriel's brothers clearly had, using them to hold his loyalty and obedience, and as a weapon to casually flay him open when they wanted something.

"I know you could break me if you wanted, and there'd be nothing I could do to stop you, and it terrifies me. But whatever else you do, I trust you not to go that far."

"You shouldn't," Gabriel said in a small, cracked voice that oozed pain. "I'm not reliable, Sammy, and I'm not nice. I might have been once, but they turned me into something else."

"I know," Sam said gently. "The Trickster is as real as the archangel, isn't he?"

"More so, I think," Gabriel admitted, still in that small voice. "I can't help it, even if I want to. It's who I am."

He looked so lost, and small. Sam had never seen Gabriel look small before. The closest to it had been when Gabriel stood unsurely in the ring of holy fire back in the warehouse, while Dean ripped into him and he wondered if they were going to leave him trapped there forever.

God, no wonder he'd been afraid to stand up to his brothers.

"I'm not asking you to be anything else, okay?" Sam told him. "Just… that you let me see the archangel too sometimes, and trust me not to tear you open the way I trust you not to break me just because you can."

Gabriel just looked at him, and Sam thought that there was such a wealth of hurt there that Gabriel didn't know ho to deal with genuine caring when it was being offered to him.

"Okay," Gabriel said, vulnerability and fear and hope filling his eyes and voice.

Sam couldn't help the smile of relief and thankfulness that washed over his face at Gabriel's words.

Gabriel put out a hand uncertainly, like he wasn't sure whether he wanted to pull Sam close or hold him at a distance.

"I want to show you something," he said.

The next moment, the space behind him was filled with gargantuan wings that left Sam feeling dwarfed, enormous and powerful and gleaming with the same brilliant gold as Gabriel's eyes.

There were six of them, and four arched behind him with reassuring strength; but two of them hung awkwardly from Gabriel's back, feathers dull and askew and entire patches of them missing, showing scarred skin and the bare struts of broken flight feathers.

"Oh God," Sam breathed in horror. Without thinking he stretched out a hand, and then realised that Gabriel was watching him with all the fierce wariness of a hawk, and hastily drew it back.

"You can touch if you want," Gabriel said, still watching him.

It was another test, Sam thought, but it was a concession too, a chance for Sam to prove that he meant what he said.

As gently as he could, Sam brushed his fingers across one of the damaged wings, his hand shaking a little with the effort he was making to keep his touch as light as possible.

The feathers felt coarse and dry, the scar tissue toughened and taut.

Sam felt something roll down his cheek, and realised that he was crying.

He turned his head, to meet Gabriel's eyes.

They were back to their usual hazel, only a thin ring of gold remaining, and regarded him without blinking.

"I wish I could heal them," Sam told Gabriel, knowing that the very idea he could was ludicrous but feeling that it needed to be said, since Gabriel's brothers obviously hadn't felt the same way.

"come here," Gabriel said quietly.

Sam did so, wiping his arm across his face to clear away some of the tears.

Gabriel pulled him in close and surveyed Sam's face, reaching up a hand to trace the tear tracks.

He sighed softly.

"I love you, Sam. So much more than you can comprehend." Four giant wings folded around them, holding Sam safe within their protection. "The thought of anything happening to you, or Lucifer getting his hands on you…" it makes me feel like I'd fight every one of my brothers rather than let that happen. The _need_ I feel to keep you safe burns sometimes until it feels like all of my Grace has been set alight. That's how much you mean to me."

Sam grabbed and clasped the hand trailing across his face.

"I'd rather Lucifer used me for a vessel than have anything hurt you," he said honestly. "I want you around for always, and I think the idea that you might leave, or see that I'm not worth it, probably scares me more than anything else right now."

Gabriel managed a shaky smile.

"I'm not planning on going anywhere, kiddo."

"I'm not either," Sam said resolutely. "Or, you know, turning my back on you, or anything."

Gabriel squeezed his hand tightly.

"Good to know."

"So… let's try and make this work?" Sam offered.

Gabriel nodded, his eyes searching Sam's face.

"Sounds like a plan."

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**FIN**

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_**Author notes: **_

_-deep breath- _

_Okay, so uh, a lot more angsty than I usually write. This owes a fair bit to _icarus-chained_'s Gabriel fics, particularly the wings bit, although my angels (especially Michael) are I think a tiny bit more callous and cruel than hers are._

_Usually I write milder, kinder Gabriels, more in line with the Gabriel we see in _Hammer of the Gods_ – when you compare it to his earlier episodes, you can really see the archangel showing through. I decided to write a Gabriel who was more Trickster than archangel, but who still had the genuine emotion and hurt we saw at the end of _Changing Channels_. Because seriously, I love him, but obnoxious and callous don't even begin to cover it._

_Also, just a random Gabriel musing: he claimed that he gave up the Messenger gig, but when you think about it, every Trick was as much about sending a message as it was amusing himself, so I think that his old self was closer to the surface than he liked to admit._


	3. When That Trumpet Sounds

**Title: **30 Snapshots

**Author:** TardisIsTheOnlyWayToTravel (or aceofannwn on livejournal)

Spoilers: For Gabriel the archangel, mostly. Season 5, probably.

**So. Here are a bunch of ficlets and shorts involving everyone's favourite Trickster archangel himself, Gabriel. Some are gen, some are slash (relax, you'll be warned) and some are plain crack.**

**All have been written for my spn_30snapshots fic prompt table.**

Ficlet Title: When That Trumpet Sounds

Summary: So it was the Platonic Ideal of trumpets, but it was still a _trumpet_. What harm could playing it do?

Warnings/spoilers: If you know who Gabriel is, you're good.

Prompt: This is for the prompt 'sound' on my spn_30snapshots table.

Author notes: see end of fic.

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**When That Trumpet Sounds**

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A week before the school band was supposed to play at the school fete, someone pinched my trumpet.

It was kind of my fault for putting it down, I know; but it got heavy after a while, and I still had another ten minutes before the bus was due, and so I put it down for a minute.

It was only for a moment, but when I went to pick it up again the trumpet case was gone, the trumpet inside it.

So. I was a total moron, there were only four days before our performance, my trumpet was gone, and I couldn't really afford to buy a new one.

Fantastic.

I did the usual '_oh-no-it's-gone-someone-stole-it-the-bastard-I'm-an-idiot-what-do-I-do-now?_' routine, kicked the bus shelter a few times which didn't help but temper any but did hurt my toes, and caught the bus home in a really miserable and nasty mood.

Four days, and I couldn't afford to replace my trumpet with a new one. I was screwed.

* * *

Except that I'm kind of a resourceful little bastard, so pretty soon I had an idea.

Sure, I couldn't get a new trumpet, but what about an _old_ one?

Which was how I ended up music and pawn shop-hopping, two days after my trumpet was stolen.

For the most part, I got nowhere. Either the shops had complete rubbish, or else it was practically like _new_ and out of my price range.

After three hours I was ready to tear my hair out, but there was a place I hadn't gone to, a little nondescript place, one of those shops that could be a music store one week and a hairdresser the next, unremarkable and not particularly wanted. You know the kind, right?

Normally I wouldn't have bothered, but I was getting desperate – two days – so I figured I might as well check the place out, and reluctantly entered the store.

Inside it was kind of skeevy, and like I'd expected, most of the instruments were shit – guitars with broken strings, pianos missing keys, beaten-up violins, that sort of thing.

Some of the stuff at the back looked okay, though, so I wandered over to have a look.

The stuff there was different. There was a small harp just sitting on a stand. There was a fiddle that gleamed with care, and some sort of old-fashioned flute, odd-looking, but in good condition.

But I barely noticed any of them, next to the trumpet.

It wasn't just a trumpet. No way. It was like the Platonic Ideal of trumpets, sitting there on the back wall. It practically _glowed_, shiny and bright and golden, like some sort of modern art piece instead of a simple instrument.

Unable to help myself, I took the trumpet down, wiped the mouthpiece on my shirt out of habit, and blew.

Well.

The sound that came out was the _sweetest_ note I'd ever heard, pure and strong.

It seemed to hang in the air for a moment, almost, before dying away.

_Holy shit_, I thought in wonder.

"Ha! A beautiful instrument, is it not?" a jovial African accent boomed in my ear, loud and laughing, and I damn near dropped the thing.

I spun around to see a man standing behind me, grinning broadly, with incredibly white teeth. He was a small man, but his limbs were longer and skinner than the rest of him, which made me think uncomfortably of spiders.

"U-uh, it's great," I stammered, catching the trumpet before I could drop it, and cringing slightly.

"That it is!" the African man said happily, beaming. "A truly wonderful instrument, and at such a reasonable price!"

"Yeah?" I asked, rather skeptical.

There was a dangling, discreet price tag, so I checked it in response to his encouraging nod – and couldn't believe it.

"_Seriously?_" I asked incredulously. "But this is – it's a work of _art!_"

"Ah yes," the proprietor nodded solemnly, "but I intend to close down the business, you know how it is, no custom in these little places, but I need to get rid of my stock. So…"

He gave a 'what can you do?' shrug, philosophical and resigned.

"Hence the excellent price." He winked at me. "You will buy it, yes?"

"Hells yeah," I said fervently.

* * *

Fast-forward to the concert – I didn't play the trumpet once before the big day, not a single practice, nothing. I couldn't have explained why; I just felt it wasn't necessary.

So, on the day of the fete I settled in with everyone else, holding my mostly untested trumpet, flipping through the music on my stand.

We started the first piece.

I've always liked '_California Dreamin'_ ' and I play it well, but I've never played it like that, and I never will again.

The music barrelled out, bright and thoughtful and deep, and took on a life of its own.

Even amid all the other sounds the trumpet stood out, soaring above them all, making the other instruments sound off-key by comparison.

We went through three more songs without a break, not that I wanted to stop; I felt gloriously intertwined with the music, more _alive_ than I ever had. The rest of my life suddenly seemed dull and empty, a facsimile of some higher existence that I was only discovering _now_. It was like liquid light poured from the trumpet with each breath I gave it, and went twirling joyfully out into the world.

After a while we did take a break, though it wasn't exactly because we were tired of playing.

It was because that was when the zombies showed up.

I know, you're probably going, 'wait, _what_?' at the sudden intrusion of zombies into this tale, but that was how it was; one minute we were all playing beautifully, the next everyone around us started screaming, and when we looked around – because screams of terror are never a good sign – there were animated corpses dragging themselves towards us.

The shock was enough to pull the air from my lungs, and I stopped playing abruptly.

The moment the music ceased the zombies stopped, and just stood there expectantly for a minute, each and ever one of them staring in the band's direction.

No, I suddenly realised, with a sick swooping sensation in my stomach. Not at the band.

At _me_.

"_Holy Hannah Montana!_" Jess Davis screamed right in my ear. "_It's the zombie apocalypse!_"

Whatever the zombies were waiting for, it apparently didn't come; their attention broke, and they started lurching towards the nearest people, with eerie groans and burbling noises.

From the moment I'd spotted the zombies I'd been frozen in shock, but at this point uncomfortable heart beneath my fingers snapped me out of it.

The trumpet had grown warm, then hot, and when I looked down the thing was glowing slightly, light a dim nightlight.

You've probably worked it out already, of course, but it was right then that it clicked: my wonderful, amazing – maybe even _unearthly?_ – trumpet was somehow summoning zombies.

Fuck my life.

So. There I was, with zombies chasing fleeing people – not that well, because a zombie goes like 5 miles an hour, tops, and the living can run way faster than that, but who the hell cares when a _rotting dead guy _is on your heels? – the band panicking all around me, and some weird mystical zombie-calling trumpet in my hands.

Now, I'm not the bravest guy, okay? I'm not that self-sacrificing; I always use the last of the cereal, and no one gets to use the Xbox if I'm there because I'm practically attached to it.

But it was pretty clear that this was kind of my fault, even if I hadn't meant to do it, and the last thing I wanted was some little kid to get eaten or something. That would suck, right?

So I lifted the trumpet and kept on playing, and once again had the attention of every zombie in sight.

They started towards me.

_Fuck_, I thought. It was a pretty good thing that they were so slow, because running for your life while blowing a trumpet? Not the easiest. The best I could manage was a kind of sedate walk away from everyone, a trail of zombies behind me like some freakish parade.

I'd gone twelve steps when a guy suddenly popped into existence next to me, looking all surprised.

He was nothing special, about average height with kind of blondish hair and wearing a slouchy green jacket over a flannel shirt, but he'd just appeared out of thin air like Q of the Continuum or Harry Potter.

The moment he appeared his eyes were already fixed on the trumpet, like he was really surprised it was there and he hadn't expected it at all.

"Huh, I wondered what happened to that," he observed, like he was talking about his spare set of keys or whatever an not a magic trumpet that summoned zombies. "Guess I should have hid it better."

"_Zombies_," I squealed.

He made a 'what?' face and looked around to see the zombies slowly converging on us.

He gave me a look, like I'd done something stupid.

"Yeah, that's why you _don't_ play the awesome miraculous trumpet," he said dryly. "If I played that thing, it'd be the freaking Apocalypse all over again. You're lucky you just got zombies."

He reached out and plucked the trumpet from my grasp.

The world went white.

When I'd blinked the spots away a couple of seconds later the trumpet was nowhere to be seen and the mysterious guy was just standing there, his hands in his pockets, looking at me.

I whipped around to look at the zombies but all that was left was a bunch of decaying bodies lying in heaps on the grass, properly dead. I gave a long, dizzy sigh of relief.

The guy was still standing there when I looked back at him, just watching me with strangely bright eyes. It was seriously unnerving, like something I couldn't actually _see_ was looming over me massively.

"You're perceptive," the guy commented. "Don't worry about the dead people, they're not going to do anything."

After a beat, he added, "probably," with a quirked eyebrow, like he'd tried to resist the temptation but hadn't quite managed it.

"Who _are_ you?" I asked, because when an enigmatic guy turns up to claim a magic zombie-calling trumpet, you kind of want to _know_.

This time the eyebrow was accompanied by a devilish smirk.

"Gabriel," he said simply, his eyes full of mischief. "They call me _Gabriel_." He winked. "Have fun with the conspiracy theories."

He vanished.

* * *

That's basically the end of the story: sure, the school fete didn't recover, and they were dead bodies everywhere and the school couldn't explain why and The Day The Zombies Attacked (And It Was Awesome) became a permanent piece of urban legend at Kenmore high for years to come, but there isn't really much else to tell, except for one thing.

A week and a half after the zombies, I came home to find a large Fed Ex package waiting for me.

There was no sender's address, just the name 'G. Messenger,' so I opened the box cautiously, but with a lot of curiosity.

It was a trumpet case, and inside that an expensive, high-quality, brand-new trumpet.

'_Hey kid,' _said the post-it stuck to the outside of the case, '_since I got my trumpet back thanks to you, I figured the least I could do was send you a replacement. Have fun, and don't go raising any more zombies, okay?_'

There was no signature; only a carelessly scrawled '_;)'_.

**END**

* * *

**Author notes:**

_This was inspired by a short story (_"When Gabriel…"_) by John Brunner in the collection _Out of my Mind _which is undoubtedly out of print (most of his stuff is), in which a Person (the reader is left to infer that it is the Devil, up to mischief) hands a trumpet to an unsuspecting musician, who gets more than he bargained for when playing it raises zombies, before the proper owner comes to reclaim it. It's an entertaining little story, and I really wanted to try the basic plot with a _Supernatural_ spin. _


	4. Channel Change

**Title: **30 Snapshots

**Author:** TardisIsTheOnlyWayToTravel (or aceofannwn on livejournal)

Spoilers: For Gabriel the archangel, mostly. Season 5, probably.

**So. Here are a bunch of ficlets and shorts involving everyone's favourite Trickster archangel himself, Gabriel. Some are gen, some are slash (relax, you'll be warned) and some are plain crack.**

**All have been written for my spn_30snapshots fic prompt table.**

Story Title: Channel Change

Summary: In which Gabriel is the plucky little angel trying to save the Winchesters from the Trickster.

Warnings/spoilers: If you know who Gabriel is, you're good. Spoilers for 'Changing Channels' – aka the TV-Land episode.

Prompt: This is for the prompt 'dream' on my spn_30snapshots table.

Author notes: _This may yet become a 'verse. If so, it will be called _Trickster In A Trench Coat. _There will be at least one sequel, although not in this collection, so keep an eye out on my main page, if you're interested._

_Also, to get Cas's attitude here: think canon!Castiel crossed with Trickster!Gabriel, and throw in a bit of drunk!Castiel. _

_Oh, and his 'duh, you moron' face is a lot like drunk!Cas's face when he comes out with the line "I drank it," in the episode _'99 Problems,' _in case you're wondering._

_

* * *

_

**CHANNEL CHANGE**

* * *

_**The thing is, dreams are the way your subconscious passes on messages. Usually they're things you don't want to know but really ought to, so your brain finds a way of smacking you in the face with them so that you can't keep ignoring whatever it is you want to pretend doesn't exist.**_

_**Considering that I'm the Messenger, and that I've kind of been ignoring a lot of things for a while, it makes sense that I'm one of the few angels that dream, right?**_

* * *

The Winchesters had been missing for three days when Gabriel went looking for them.

It wasn't the first time they'd disappeared off the grid, so he wasn't unduly worried at first, but when there was still no sign of them and he couldn't reach their cell phones, he realised that something was wrong.

It took Gabriel an entire day to work out how to find them and get to them; there was something blocking him, something powerful. But Gabriel was obstinate, and he'd given up everything for the Winchesters, so he wasn't about to lose them now.

Breaking into the artificial sub-reality was hard, but hey, what wasn't?

He strode in to see the brothers in what appeared to be some kind of game show.

"Gabe!" Sam sounded pathetically grateful to see him, which normally would have caused a warm feeling in Gabriel's chest, but right now he was too busy being confused and annoyed.

"Gabe?" Dean asked suspiciously.

"What are you _doing_ here?" Gabriel demanded. "You two have been missing for days, I've been looking everywhere. Is this a _game show?_"

He sent their surroundings a bewildered glance.

"Never mind that, get us the hell out of here!" Dean shouted.

Gabriel stepped forward, reaching for them, but before he could touch them there was a wave of power and he was suddenly somewhere else.

He paused, warily. Whatever had been trying to prevent him from finding the boys had just relocated him, and he didn't know where or why.

Looking around, he thought that his surroundings looked like New York. The constant crowd flowed around and past him, a few of them jostling him as he went by, but he was fairly certain that they were all constructs just like the rest of this sub-reality.

Gabriel tried to feel his way back to the Winchesters, but before he could concentrate for long enough, there was a sudden explosion in the building to his left, and he was forced to duck bits of flying debris.

People ran, screaming, and Gabriel straightened up in time to see a young man hurled through the hole in the wall into the street at great velocity.

Another man strode through the hole behind him, smirking, his fists glowing orange, and as Gabriel watched the first man staggered to his feet, his own fists lighting up with blue.

"Oh, I do not have _time_ for this," Gabriel muttered, right before the next explosion flung him helplessly backwards and slammed him into the asphalt.

* * *

Trapped in TV Land, Sam and Dean were getting increasingly desperate.

"How long do we have to keep doing this?" Dean asked.

"I don't know," said Sam. There was applause from the invisible audience. "Maybe forever?"

This time the audience laughed.

"We might die in here," Sam added, voicing the fear that had been nagging at both of them since this had began.

The unseen audience laughed again.

Dean snapped.

"How is that funny?" he demanded, only to receive more laughter. "Vultures."

The laughter cut off and was replaced by applause as the door suddenly opened and Gabriel walked in, looking battered and frantic.

"Are you okay?" Sam asked worriedly. There was blood trickling down the side of Gabriel's face.

Gabriel didn't bother to respond, his focus on more important things.

"Listen guys, I don't have much time," he said urgently. "It's going to be back after me any minute – but something's not right, okay? This thing's _waaaay_ more powerful than it should be."

"What thing?" Dean asked. "The Trickster?"

"If it _is_ a Trickster," Gabriel said darkly.

Before he could continue he was suddenly flung back into a wall by an invisible force.

"Gabriel!" Sam cried out.

The Trickster strolled in, wearing his customary tie-and-trenchcoat ensemble, looking calm and collected, a slight smirk tugging at the side of his mouth.

"Sam. Dean," he said, and the unseen studio audience went wild.

Gabriel scrambled to his hands and knees, glaring. His mouth had been firmly duct-taped shut.

"Hello Gabriel," the Trickster said with a smile, and Gabriel vanished.

"What did you do with him?" Sam demanded.

"He is unharmed," the Trickster replied. There was a flash of mischief in his eyes that belied his poker-faced expression, and he added, "Well. He is _most likely_ unharmed. Sometimes I lose concentration."

Sam scowled angrily.

"All right, you know what?" snapped Dean. "I am done with the monkey dance, okay? We get it."

The Trickster tilted his head, inviting Dean to continue.

"This whole thing. Playing our roles, right? That's your game?"

The Trickster tipped his head back a little to gaze at Dean contemplatively.

Damn monster always looked so annoyingly _calm_.

"Yes, and no. It's half my game."

"What's the other half?" Sam asked.

The Trickster shrugged.

"It's really very simple. Play your roles out in the real world. Say yes to Lucifer and Michael."

The two hunters gaped at him. He simply looked back.

"You're jumping on the 'end the world' bandwagon?" Dean asked incredulously. "_You_, the wine-drinking, candy-loving, Trickster?"

The Trickster shrugged again.

"It can't be stopped. Might as well get it over with."

"Whose side are you on?" Sam asked furiously, not believing a word.

The Trickster looked at him.

"I'm not on anyone's side."

"Yeah right," Dean scoffed. "You're grabbing ankle for Michael or Lucifer. Which one is it?"

To their slight surprise, the normally-composed Trickster gave Dean an intense, angry stare.

"I am on neither Lucifer nor Michael's side. As far as I am concerned they are both complete dicks. Suggest that I work for either of them ever again and I will ensure you regret it, Dean Winchester."

"Oh, you're somebody's bitch," Dean sneered.

The Trickster's eyes flashed, and the next moment he was right up in Dean's face.

"You should show me some respect," he growled, his voice lower and more gravelly than Dean or Sam had ever heard it. "Listen very closely to me, Winchester. You and your brother are going to accept the fact that this situation is your fault and your responsibility, and you will act accordingly. You _will_ accept your roles as the Vessels of Michael and Lucifer."

"And if we don't?" Sam asked, knowing that it would be nothing good.

The Trickster shot him an intense stare.

"Then you will remain in TV Land forever."

He snapped his fingers, and the two brothers found themselves in yet another TV show.

* * *

Two shows later and Sam had been turned into the Impala. Despite the fact that they had definitely staked the Trickster, he obviously wasn't dead.

"Okay, so the stake didn't work," Dean grumbled.

"Maybe the stake didn't work because it isn't a Trickster," Sam said thoughtfully.

"What?"

"You heard Gabe. He said this thing was too powerful to be a Trickster."

Dean thought about it.

"And did you notice the way he looked at Gabe? Almost like he knew him."

"And how pissed he got when you brought up Michael and Lucifer," Sam added.

Dean's eyes widened at it clicked.

"Son of a bitch," he swore.

"What?"

"I think I know what we're dealing with," he said grimly.

The two of them began to plan.

* * *

Dean took a deep breath.

"All right, you son of a bitch!" he yelled at the sky. "We'll do it!"

Just like that, they were no longer alone.

The Trickster ran his eyes over Impala-Sam speculatively, his mouth twitching slightly, before looking at Dean.

"Let's go," he said, stepping forward, but Dean stepped back.

"Whoa," he said, "not so fast."

The Trickster paused, and frowned.

"Nobody's going anywhere until Sam has opposable thumbs," Dean added stubbornly.

The Trickster's mouth quirked a little in irritation.

"I don't see that it matters. Lucifer's going to ride in him anyway."

Dean glared.

The Trickster rolled his eyes, but snapped his fingers, like he couldn't be bothered arguing.

The Impala was instantly replaced by Sam in his usual shape. He felt his body reflexively.

"Can we _go_ now?" the Trickster asked, giving them a definitely irritated look.

"Just tell me one thing," Dean said. "Why didn't the stake kill you?"

"I _am_ the Trickster," the Trickster said, like that explained everything.

"Or maybe you're not," Dean told him.

Before the Trickster could respond, brows furrowing, Sam lit his cigarette lighter and tossed it down.

The circle of holy oil, difficult to see on the dark ground, instantly caught alight. The Trickster's gaze followed the blossoming path of the fire for a moment before he returned it to Dean.

"Is there a point to that?" the Trickster asked calmly.

"Yeah. You're an angel."

"That is ridiculous," the Trickster said. But his gaze darted between them.

"Right, well, maybe we're mistaken," Sam replied. "Why don't you just leave the ring of holy fire and prove it."

The Trickster glanced between the brothers, calculation going on behind those blue eyes, but there was no knowing what emotion was hiding behind his habitually masked expression.

He snapped his fingers, and all three of them were abruptly back in the warehouse.

The Trickster stood, waiting, unblinking, his face impassive.

"You are more perceptive than I appreciated."

"Yeah, we get that a lot," Dean said. "So which one are you?"

He was subjected to a long stare, before the Trickster answered.

"I am Castiel, archangel of the Lord." The Trickkster's voice was even as usual.

Sam stared in shock, while Dean glared grimly.

"_Castiel?_" Sam repeated disbelievingly. "Castiel the archangel?"

Most of the angels they'd met had been jerks, sure, but Sam had kind of hoped… that maybe archangels would be different.

Castiel threw him a '_duh, you moron_,' look.

"_Obviously_."

"Okay, Castiel," Dean interrupted. "How does an archangel become a Trickster?"

Castiel shrugged.

"I wanted nothing to do with what my brothers were doing. So I left. I had to disguise myself somehow or one of the bright ones would have found me. Raphael was always good at that. If I became a pagan god, then everyone would assume that that was the source of my power, and no one would think to look behind it. Besides, who'd expect an _archangel_ to pretend to be a god?"

"If you don't like what they've been doing, then why are you helping with the whole apocalypse plan?" Sam wanted to know, frowning. "Were you lying about not being on either side?"

"_I don't care whether Lucifer or Michael wins_."

The Winchesters recoiled slightly at the force in Castiel's voice. He gave them a fierce, anguished glare.

"But Heaven has been at each other's throats for millions of years now. I'm tired of it, and the only way to end it is if Lucifer and Michael go _mano a mano_."

Dean raised his eyebrows.

"You're helping them end the world because the angels won't stop with the hair-pulling?" His scorn was clearly audible.

The look that Castiel shot Dean was venomous.

"Try watching your brothers _killing_ and maiming each other over a bunch of apes and tell me that, Winchester."

"I wouldn't end the world over it," Dean retorted.

Castiel just looked contemptuous.

"You would do anything for your brother and you know it. The fact that you went to Hell for his sake merely proves this. But it doesn't matter. The apocalypse is inevitable. It will happen whether you accept your destiny or not."

"There has to be something we can do," Sam protested.

Castiel gave him a look of pity. Neither brother could tell whether it was genuine or assumed.

"There is nothing. This isn't about a war, Sam. This is about two brothers who loved and betrayed each other. Why do you think that you two are the Vessels?"

"What are you talking about?" Dean asked warily.

Castiel's expression suggested that he thought that they were both slow, but he explained anyway.

"Think about the parallels, Dean. Michael, the big brother, loyal to an absent father. Lucifer, the younger brother, rebelling against his father's plans and striking out on his own. It was planned this way from the beginning. The angels have _always_ known, boys. For the entirety of our existence we have known that it would come down to the two of you, here at the end of the world."

There was a heavy silence.

"No. That's not going to happen." Dean was shaken, but resolute.

Castiel's stare was intense.

"There is no negotiation or wiggle room, Dean, Sam. I find it… regrettable, that things have to end this way, but it is destiny."

He tilted his head.

"Now why don't you let me out?"

"You're bringing Gabe back before we do anything," Sam said mulishly.

Castiel's mouth compressed at the order, but he snapped his fingers.

Gabriel appeared beside them, a little unsteadily.

"Gabe!" Sam exclaimed in concern. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," Gabriel assured him. He turned to look at the silent archangel.

"_Castiel_," he said in disgust, complicated emotions flashing swiftly across his face.

Blue eyes bored into Gabriel's hazel ones.

"Gabriel," Castiel acknowledged. "How is the search for Father progressing?" He tilted his head in mocking curiosity.

"Screw you," Gabriel snarled.

Castiel's eyes narrowed slightly, but he gave no other response.

"Okay, we're out of here," Dean decided. "Come on, Sam."

The two of them began to head for the door, Gabriel following.

"Are you planning to leave me here forever, Dean?" Castiel called after them. "Sam?"

Dean turned near the door, and gave Castiel a stern stare.

"No, we're not, because we don't screw with people the way you do. And for the record? This isn't about some prize fight between your brothers or some destiny that can't be stopped. This is about you being too afraid to stand up to your family."

Castiel's eyes went wide like he'd been slapped, the aloof mask finally falling from his face, leaving his genuine expression exposed for the first time since they'd met him. It was pained and raw.

Dean just reached over and set off the fire alarm.

Castiel glanced up as the sprinklers went off, but looked back at Dean.

"Don't say I never did anything for you," Dean shouted, looking back at Castiel.

The archangel's expression was wide-eyed and distraught, like a kitten caught in the rain. The water trickling down his face and down sodden wriggles of hair only added to that impression.

Castiel watched them leave, looking lost and abandoned, as the two hunters and their angel exited the warehouse without a backward glance.

It took several minutes for all of the holy fire to go out. When it did Castiel just stood there for a long moment, before he snapped his fingers and the water cut off.

Still dripping wet, he vanished, leaving the warehouse more or less as it had been before him.

* * *

_**Sometimes I really wish I could give my subconscious a kick in the pants.**_


End file.
